1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator and, more particularly, to a refrigerator in which a filter assembly can be exchanged with ease and an available space in the refrigerator is increased.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 5, a conventional refrigerator is divided into a freezing compartment 110 and a cooling compartment 120 by a partition in a right-and-left direction. On each of the openings of the freezing compartment 110 and the cooling compartment 120 are provided a freezing compartment door 111 and a cooling compartment door 121 each having respective door guides 112 and 122 to accommodate bottles and the like in an up-and-down direction inside of the freezing compartment door 111 and the cooling compartment door 121.
The freezing compartment 110 formed in the left side of a main body has an ice making compartment 115 to make ice at an upper part thereof and is provided with a plurality of freezing compartment shelves 113 and freezing compartment drawers 114 in an up-and-down direction under the ice making compartment 115. On a front surface of the freezing compartment door 111 is a dispensing part to which ice made in the ice making compartment 115 and drinking water from the outside are supplied. The dispensing part comprises a water dispenser to supply drinking water and an ice dispenser to supply ice.
The cooling compartment 120 formed in the right side of the main body is provided with a plurality of cooling compartment shelves 123 to divide the inside of the cooling compartment 120 at an upper part of the cooling compartment 120 in an up-and-down direction and a plurality of cooling compartment drawers 124 at a lower part thereof. On the cooling compartment shelf 123 positioned at the most upper part is provided a filter assembly 140 to filtrate water supplied from a separate water supply part and supply the filtrated water to a water tank (not shown) connected to the water dispenser.
However, in the conventional refrigerator, because the filter assembly is mounted on the cooling compartment shelf positioned at the most upper part, a user must remove foods that have been placed on the cooling compartment shelves of the cooling compartment in order to exchange the spent filter cartridge with a new filter cartridge, which provides an inconvenience to exchange the filter cartridge.
Further, the filter assembly is mounted on the cooling compartment shelf, which harms an outer appearance and reduces the available space in the refrigerator. Further, a distance between the filter assembly at the upper part of the cooling compartment and the water tank at the lower part of the cooling compartment is long, which requires a long hose and increases a cost to connect the long hose.